Strange Children
by wackywhateleys
Summary: The mother of a young Ingo and Emmet reflects on her strange twin children; years later, the twins come to Nimbasa City and are forced to contend with a place far different from the little world they used to know. Plenty of headcanon, quite short, and awkwardly close to being shippy.
1. Strange Children

Insects buzzed across the unkempt fields of Anville Town, and the late summer sunset tinged everything with fuzzy, humid gold; and a woman stood on the front steps and watched her young sons cut purposefully through the grass to the trainyard, away from her, hand in hand. They always held hands. And it had always been like this, them going off together with little more than a polite word to her. The twins were strange children; she had been given eleven years to understand that, but she still felt lost. These were supposed to be _her_ children, but she and her husband were on the periphery of their existence, and everyone else simply didn't exist. Ingo and Emmet lived in a world of their own. They had from the first—odd, silent infants whose first words were each others' names, and for whom "mama" and "vater" came much later, after they had exhausted the possibilities of everything else they could pronounce. Their curiosity about the world had been for the most part limited to each other: she'd watched them putting their hands and feet together and reveling in their identical gestures, all their toys abandoned. And they had asked questions of her, the wise and all-powerful being who floated around the edges of their consciousness. _Why does Emmet look like me_, and _Are we always going to be the same,_ and _Why did I turn into two people_. That one chilled her blood. She'd explained gently that they weren't one person—_have they really gone this long thinking they're one person_—they were only brothers—_they're almost three years old, they should know this by now_—they just had the same DNA—_what if they've gone this long thinking their name is Ingoandemmet—_and that was because…

Why had she told them that? Maybe they would have turned out far more normal if she hadn't taught them all she had learned about twins, and where twins came from, and what some people thought twins could do…But no. She knew that they had known, in some way she couldn't comprehend, long before she had told them; that they had felt something missing before she had ever started to worry.

And that was fine, really it was, or so she told herself. They were healthy children and she could have been saddled with much worse. Not that she hadn't taken them to countless doctors in far-off towns, hoping that someone could diagnose something, that maybe this problem had a name—were they autistic? She barely knew anything about that. She almost wanted them to be, scary as it was. But for eleven years, every one of those professionals said no, the twins were technically normal in every way, they were just very attached to each other. To the exclusion of everything else, she thought bitterly, even their own mother. Maybe, it was suggested, they would grow out of it. She had believed that, once.

As her boys—if she could call them that—disappeared over the curve of the hill, the mother wiped her sweating hands on her apron and went back inside, to cook a late dinner for her perpetually-working husband and pick up the twins' homeschool books from where they had been left, in a neat stack on the table. _They'll be fine engineers someday_, their father said proudly, and she had to agree, picturing them as grown men, tall and pale like their father, and still in the same tiny town, in their own little world, interacting with only machines. It was the only future she could see for them, and though it made her sad, at least they would be happy with each other. They didn't even notice that they'd never amount to much.


	2. Another Ferris Wheel Scene

Visiting Nimbasa City made the twins uncomfortable. Only Ingo had ever said it out loud, but he knew Emmet was feeling the same thing. He could just tell.

This was the most unlikely place in the world to have an engineering college, they were sure. Not that they had seen much of the world outside Anville. Not that they needed to. This place was huge, bright, bustling, a tourist attraction the size of twenty Anvilles put together (or that's what it felt like). It wasn't a place for_ thinking_. But there it was, Nimbasa College; on the outskirts, about where town melted into suburbs and tall green grass, but in the city nonetheless.

And classes were due to start there in a week, so they had better get used to it.

"We will be sleeping in dorm rooms. I'm very excited," Emmet said. They were sitting side by side on the subway, fingers intertwined, looking oddly stiff and formal for their everyday surroundings.

"If we aren't in the same room?" Ingo had brooded over this scenario for days and it was his single greatest dread. Emmet felt the same, although he had already decided on a solution which he found perfectly suitable.

"We will sneak into each other's rooms! It's very simple." Emmet kissed his brother's forehead and smiled wider than he had before.

"But that would be…against the rules." The thought disturbed him. "We can get a room together. If we ask often, and kindly, it can be arranged."

"I'm sure you are right, brother." Emmet was leaning against his brother now, the omnipresent empty smile on his face, looking into Ingo's eyes. Ingo looked back and saw himself reflected there. Both were satisfied.

Why did it have to be Nimbasa? Because of the scholarship, because of Gear Station? Wasn't this place too big for them? Weren't there too many people? Not for the first time, Ingo wondered helplessly why they had come.

Emmet wondered too, of course, but he was busy people-watching and had forgotten it for the moment.

"How can we be certain that we'll succeed in a college? We've never been to school before," Ingo said. It bothered him that his brother was so very interested in other people.

"Our standardized testing scores were good. You should cheer up, brother. I hear there's an amusement park."

The scores hadn't just been good. They had been perfect. And the amusement park did sound good. "I have seen a Ferris Wheel over the tops of the buildings."

"Perhaps we could ride in it tonight, brother! That would make me very happy!"

"It would make this whole thing far less wrong," Ingo said, not being able to smile with any level of comfort, not being able to admit his happiness in any way he liked.

The subway stopped and the twins stood up at once, and pushed their way to the door hand-in-hand. If anyone stared at these strange pale specters in dress shirts and ties, they didn't notice them; they were heading for the light, for class orientation, for a new station in their lives. It would be all right if they had each other, and they knew they always would. Either one of them would be helpless alone. So they clasped hands tightly.

Ingo found the orientation tiresome, and so did Emmet, though he never stopped smiling; they each understood that this was something to be nervous and excited about. They certainly were. And they had learned that they weren't going to share a room, even though they had wanted it, which chewed away at their enthusiasm (or, Emmet's enthusiasm).

But the amusement park glowed in the nighttime streets, glittering epitome of city-ness, by now only the territory of lovers and teenagers hoping to be, and the twins felt that it would add something pleasant to a loud and confusing day. The Ferris Wheel was like a halo over the whole city.

From up close, of course, it was only the same tangle of machinery as everything else they had ever seen.

"I'm not actually sure if I like heights," Ingo mumbled as they climbed into the car.

"And I'm not sure if I like them either, but that's ok. It'll be fun!"

With a jerk, the Ferris Wheel started slowly climbing.

"I wonder how far we'll see when we get to the top," Emmet said, eyes glowing a little with excitement.

Ingo shifted in his seat as if trying to get as close to the slowly-disappearing ground as possible. He hadn't come for the view; he just wanted Emmet's attention on him. "Do we have to look?"

"Yes. Look at the city lights. Wheeee!"

There was no one more capable of expressing joy in a joyless way. Whether he actually felt mirth or not, Emmet's enthusiasm tended to unsettle enough to drain any fun out of his surroundings. But it wasn't as if he could stop smiling. Under that smile, there was absolutely nothing, a blank face. Ingo didn't want to think of them as being different, but he thought that there was something somehow _less_ about Emmet.

No, he wasn't going to think about differences and problems now. This was his time alone with his brother. Maybe their last time really alone for a while; he didn't think he would like what the future brought them.

Emmet was pressing his blank smiley face and his wide spidery hands against the window glass like a mime, peering out over the city outlined in lights. Ingo stood up—nervously, with the ground so far below—and held him from behind, resting his chin on his brother's shoulder.

"Is there something you want, brother?" Emmet was unsurprised.

"Only you." It was true; he couldn't think of anything else he wanted, except maybe trains, but those were essential parts of the backdrop, like water or the sun. He had no choice but to want them.

"You know that I want you too." Emmet slid around and pushed his brother back down onto the seat, and laid his head on his chest. They stayed there, afraid that if either of them moved it would break some spell, and hoped desperately that their hearts would beat in time—a remnant from a childhood that was, as of this day, most definitely over.

The world is a worrisome place, Ingo thought.

This will be fun, Emmet thought. Any worry in his mind was already transformed into disordered excitement; if he was aware he was concerned it was only barely, a faint feeling that some other emotion should be there.

"Are you finding heights to be as bad as you thought?" Emmet said.

"Yes," Ingo replied, mostly out of stubbornness, and slid his hand into his brother's.

The Ferris Wheel car came down and halted with a gentle screech.

"I don't want to get off," Ingo mumbled.

"Well, we have to," Emmet said.

So they did.


End file.
